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A couple of obscure agriculture bills in a faraway red state might not
seem to be urgent political fare, but if you make the mistake of eating
hamburgers, of if you care about treating animals with dignity, you should
keep a close eye on the fate of these initiatives. Together, they represent
the most insidious effort we’ve seen in decades to expand the scope of
industrially produced animal products.

On Tuesday, February 5, Oklahoma lawmakers will introduce bills SB375 and
HB1999 to the state’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. A couple
of obscure agriculture bills in a faraway red state might not seem to be
urgent political fare, but if you make the mistake of eating hamburgers, of
if you care about treating animals with dignity, you should keep a close eye
on the fate of these initiatives. Together, they represent the most
insidious effort we’ve seen in decades to expand the scope of industrially
produced animal products.

SB 375 effectively seeks to authorize the opening
of horse slaughterhouses in Oklahoma. The last horse slaughter plants in the
United States were shut down in 2007. This left the United States to ship
upwards of 200,000 horses (many of them mustangs removed by the Bureau of
Land Management to clear space for cattle) to Canadian and Mexican
abattoirs, from where the meat goes to European markets. Oklahoma, which
keeps a substantial portion of these horses in holding pens, is eager to
keep this business local. What it would it also like to keep local is the
resulting flesh. HB1999 aims to legalize the production and sale of
horsemeat, or, as one interested party insisted that we now call it:
“cheval.”

To think that this meat will not end up in the nation’s beef supply
is to misunderstand the industrial food system. Recently, Polish horsemeat
was found in Irish burgers. The average American burger is subject to the
same unregulated adulteration. As Forbes’ Vickery Eckhoff writes, “Your
average burger is a big mash-up of edible scraps and parts from different
cows from different plants, often from different states (and even
countries), with fat and additives ground in, all of which makes Polish
horse meat ending up in Irish beef patties a bit easier to understand.” She
adds, “Yes, it could happen here.”

Of course, it’s illegal to incorporate
horsemeat into ground beef. But, realistically speaking, that hardly
matters. The corrupt underbelly of animal agriculture will digest anything.
There’s zero regulation of what scraps from where enter into the meat’s
labyrinthian supply chain. Oklahoma, with its “struggling racetracks” happy
to dispose of “spent” horses alongside its sizable cattle industry is
watering at the mouth, I would imagine, to feed the world cheap tubes of
mystery meat. It’s not hard to envision a scenario whereby scraps from
slaughterhouses are consolidated, processed, and incorporated as ground beef
filler. It’s hard to understate how wealthy this culinary combo would make
some people.

There’s more. As I’ve written before (as had Eckhoff, far more
extensively), the introduction of horsemeat into the American meat supply
is, corruption or no, an unprecedented public health disaster waiting to
happen. Horses are medicated with drugs that could harm humans and these
drugs, as I explained in Slate, have the power to make Mad Cow Disease look
like a case of the sniffles:

The most common pharmacological concern when it
comes to horse meat is an anti-inflammatory drug called phenylbutazone, or
“bute.” Whatever the exact lineup of drugs administered, many racehorses
receive a steady dosage of bute. For all its effectiveness in treating horse
pain, however, bute, a carcinogen, is strongly linked with bone marrow and
liver problems in humans. In fact, the danger it poses is so acute that the
FDA has banned its use in animals intended for human consumption because,
according to one peer-reviewed study in Food and Chemical Toxicology, “it
causes serious and lethal idiosyncratic adverse effects in humans.”

I’m going
to let you in on a little secret here: Oklahoma legislators know this and
they DO NOT CARE. The bills slated to be heard on Tuesday are one small but
tragic step in a much larger process of trying to legalize the slaughter,
sale, and consumption of horses in the United States. It involves dozens of
corrupt state and federal officials. And it’s all driven by greed and a
complete disregard for animals and, frankly, the humans who are expected t
eat them. With the help of Vickery Eckhoff (who truly “owns” this story), I
plan to keep readers updated as this conspiracy of sorts unfolds.

In the meantime, contact the Chair of the Agriculture and Rural
Development Committee in Oklahoma that has the power to decide whether to
hear SB375 or not. Thank you!

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